"Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate." -- Charlotte Gray
Since becoming a mother, the above quote rings true with me, and with lots of mothers I'm sure. I was a lot colder, unforgiving, proud, and stubborn as a person before becoming a mother. A crying child had almost no affect on me. Any mother, aside from my own, wasn't interesting to me. I didn't want to hear their problems, or screaming children, or the amount of long hours that they put into their day. Quite simply, I wasn't interested because I didn't understand them. I didn't understand what it took to be a mom. And therefore, their trials and tribulations didn't hold my attention.
I can pinpoint when not only my attitude towards mothers changed, but also when my compassion for a mother came to the forefront. It was when I found out I was going to become a mother myself. To say that my life changed when reading the pregnancy test would be an understatement. Seeing two lines on a stick meant that I was going to become someone's world. Their ENTIRE world. I would be responsible for this person in every way. Every move I made would be analyzed by someone.
During the nine months of my pregnancy, I became instantly aware that I was much more emotional. I cared so much more for strangers' children. I would see other moms out with their kids and if I witnessed a bruised knee, tears welled up in my eyes. The rush of these new emotions scared me, I'm not going to lie. If I was this emotional being pregnant, I couldn't even imagine where my tears would gather once I delivered my child.
The day came, however, when I did deliver my son. I cried the whole day. This being my first pregnancy and delivery, you can imagine that I was scared...and that too is an understatement. I cried because I was scared, because I didn't know what to expect, and because I knew there was no going back. This was it. I was about to deliver life. A life that I made from scratch. From his eyebrows to his toenails. I made a human being inside me. Amazing. I still can't really believe I did it...or that it's done daily by women everywhere. The whole "sperm and egg turn into a child" thing still baffles me.
Once I settled into the daily routine of being a mother, although it's anything BUT routine, I noticed that I was still emotional about children, especially infants. They're so utterly helpless and dependant on their caregiver, that anytime I heard about a child abuse story or an abandoned infant, it just about stopped me dead in my tracks. I cried, I said "how could anyone hurt a child", it bothered me immensely and still does.
I have grown more compassionate to children and mothers. I now understand what a mother's job is all about, how hard it is to be a mom, how grueling and, at the same time, rewarding the process is. I feel for moms and children everyday. My tears and I have become friends instead of strangers now because I am so emotional since becoming a mother.
What Charlotte Gray says in the above quote is 100% true. Once you become a mother to your own child, you are now a mother to everyone's child. And until you experience motherhood firsthand, you will never be able to understand the bond that forges between a mother and child. It's so intense and so unwavering, that to describe it as unbreakable is even an understatement.
It's so much more than that. It's spiritual, metaphysical, and down right otherworldly. There are no words to depict the love between a mother and child. To say there's nothing in this world I wouldn't do for my son doesn't even begin to bring the statement to life. I would kill, lie, cheat, and steal for my son in any way that I needed to. I am a normal person in every day life, but make me have to flex my mothering and I, like all moms, become supernatural.
We can take on the world and anything that is thrown at us. We are the strongest and most important women in the world. We are mothers to every child. And I firmly believe that there is nothing in this world that can rise above that.
Please, share your comments and stories. Hearing what other parents have to say is empowering to all mothers.
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Parenting